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Yesterday was the birthday of the late El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, also known as Malcolm X. He would have been 84 years old. I often wonder what Malcolm would say about race relations today. Would he think we have come far? Would he feel satisfied that we have a black president? Was Malcolm’s sole motivation the symbolic shifting of race relations in this country or was it the actual change in the material conditions of the black community?
As an up and coming activist there were few books that influenced me as much as the Autobiography of Malcolm X. Not only was his life inspiring and continues to inspire myself and others committed to the movement for social change world-wide, his voice of dissent to mediocrity masked as social welfare to benefit the black community, as opposed to full self-determination and self-actualization, has yet to be replaced. His voice maintains in the background always motivating us for true equality, for basic human rights, and to demand a better world, “by any means necessary” for those that have survived a brutal history of colonization, racism and slavery.
So happy birthday Malcolm X. Your spirit continues to inspire those of us that see injustice and continue to work for a better world. I can’t imagine where we would be without you.
Check out this great video of one of his most influential speeches.

In the foreword to her debut novel The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison describes how she came to write her classic story of an isolated black girl’s disavowal of blackness. She points to the “reclamation of racial beauty” that was so central to the cultural activism of the 1960s as her motivating context, but she notes that this girl’s story is “a unique situation, not a representative one:” in order to explore more dramatically the consequences of internalized racism and sexism, Morrison deprives her protagonist of a supportive family from which she might draw strength. Morrison’s Pecola is vulnerable, bereft, utterly exposed, and suffers tragically for it.

In the foreword to her debut novel The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison describes how she came to write her classic story of an isolated black girl’s disavowal of blackness. She points to the “reclamation of racial ...

Ed. note: This post is cross-published from Ravishly, where it is part of a conversation series on police violence against women of color.

The last year has seen an uprising in the resistance to police violence the likes of which we haven’t seen since the murder of Amadou Diallo in 1999. But even in this climate of elevated attention to the issue, we rarely hear about the ways police violence affects women. Or its frequency.

The avenues for legal and economically viable employment for women of color, including queer and trans women of color, immigrant women, and especially those who are all or several at the same time, are extremely limited. Whether we’re talking about a lack of ...

Ed. note: This post is cross-published from Ravishly, where it is part of a conversation series on police violence against women of color.

The last year has seen an uprising in the resistance to police violence the ...

The unrest and conditions in Haiti have pushed many Haitian citizens to choose to move to the Dominican Republic. This issue of Haitian immigration is a controversial one, especially now that thousands have been casted into immigration limbo when a law that retroactively stripped Dominican-born people of Haitian descent of birth-right and then required them to apply for citizenship was enacted in recent weeks.

According to an Amnesty International report, there are an estimated 110,000 who qualify for citizenship, yet only 5,345 people applied (as of January 9th). The report states, “Law 169/14…required those born to undocumented foreign parents, whose birth was never declared in ...

Ed. note: This post was originally published on the Community site.

The unrest and conditions in Haiti have pushed many Haitian citizens to choose to move to the Dominican Republic. This issue of Haitian immigration is a controversial ...